Greece’s dire financial straits meant it had scant leverage to push back against some of its creditors’ most onerous demands. ...

The moves are fostering a deep sense of resentment among Tsipras’s allies and a conviction that Europeans sought to humiliate him. During a pivotal meeting with Merkel, French President François Hollande and European Council President Donald Tusk, Tsipras at one point received a thinly veiled threat that if he walked away and left the euro, Greece risked going it alone geopolitically, too.

According to two officials in Brussels with knowledge of the exchange, the specter was raised of aggression from Turkey — a neighboring nation viewed in Greece as a historic antagonist.

Are you sufficiently terrified? Unless you are currently cowering under your bed and praying to whatever diety you think can help you, then you aren't terrified enough.
If you don't believe me then you weren't watching cable news in the days leading up to Independence Day.

The "Little Ice Age" and its included climactic minima is often partially attributed to an extreme solar minimum. In particular,

During the period 1645--1715, in the middle of the Little Ice Age, there was a period of low solar activity known as the Maunder Minimum. The Spörer Minimum has also been identified with a significant cooling period between 1460 and 1550.[69] Other indicators of low solar activity during this period are levels of the isotopes carbon-14 and beryllium-10.[70]

Seymour Hersh's blockbuster storyThe Killing of Osama bin Laden, got a lot of attention for a very short period of time. That media attention was mostly in the form of character assassination such as “conspiracy theorist,” “off the rails,” “crank,” and general "kill the messenger" attacks.

Greetings, 99%! I hope you will enjoy my sharing with you this week's cartoon based, of course, on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who recently announced that he is running for President. He has been beastly for a long time, continues to be beastly, and has surely earned his turn as one of Les Beastiables.

NOTE FOR NEW READERS: This series features a new Les Beastiables cartoon every Wednesday about 1:30-1:45 PM Eastern on Daily Kos, Friday afternoons here. We indulge in a little Franglish because the French are tres classy. But I digresse.

For the serious story behind the cartoon lampoon, please read on while we make the beastie squirm on the hot seat. Then you'll be able to "cleanse your palate" with cute chimp photos before you leave.

Washington, DC – Following a week of impressive Supreme Court decisions, many are saying Obama’s legacy is secure. But is it really? Has all of America forgotten about the war on whistle blowers, the war on immigrants, the war on drugs, war on privacy, and the war on civilians living underneath drone aircraft? This not mention the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the continuing pillaging by Wall Street. So how exactly is Obama’s legacy secure? Well, sometimes it takes a comedy show to break all this down. Watch this clip from “Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp.”

Athens at the dawn of the 6th Century B.C. was an unremarkable city. The arts, science, and philosophy that would make it great were still centuries away.
The only notable thing about Athens of the time was its relatively large size, which was also the source of its problems. Athens was too large to feed itself and this was becoming a crisis.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the citizen long guaranteed by our Constitution, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to that separation.

photo credit TERRAPIN Bright Green
I'm thinking of a series of green articles like this that show not so much what is wrong with our environment but rather what to do about it now in the new world of climate change. This is a start:

I began this piece in January 2015, shortly after the election of Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras. I had not really been following the Greek elections, but just days after it occurred, I saw in a European newspaper Alexis Tsipras' "Open Letter to Germany: That Which You Were Never Told About Greece".

I read it, and I was hooked.

It was a letter of the times we live in. A letter about people who feel crushed by the increasingly powerful financiers of the West. It struck me as frank and oddly personal. I had not read anything quite so stark and pure coming from a current national leader.

It was a very logical, irreversible declaration of independence.

Today, on this day of the Greek default, I wanted to share that moment of history I found so moving and significant. The original message has since been lost in the noise and propaganda — but I do believe this is what a "tipping point" in history looks like, at the very moment it is happening.

This article comes from the most polluted city in the world where small children have already damaged lungs. Most of the pollution comes from fossii fuelled transportation and open burning. The recognition of the dangers of pollution has come too late for them. Why do we wait until we reach this level before the realization sets in that we cannot continue our way of life.

Do you know how many countries we are bombing? Go ahead. Try to guess how many.

You probably can't, and that is an incredibly awful thing about our country.
We've bombed brown-skinned people in seven different countries in the past few months and most Americans couldn't care less.

When grassroots activists and union leaders threatened to withhold campaign donations from Democratic Congressmen who voted for Fast Track, it should have been a wake up call for all Democrats. If party members have been reduced to threatening representatives just to ensure voter interests are protected, then you know the party has lost its way.

In two days about a quarter of a million people will be made stateless. They will have no homes, no passports, and no civil rights. There are several reasons for this, but the primary reason is racism.

The TPP agreement has never been about helping average Americans obtain jobs. Its overarching purpose has been to ensure US corporations gain enough power to dominate international trade markets. More specifically, it was designed to deter China’s expansionist ambitions.

President Obama has declared that the temporary defeat of the TPP in Congress by the Democratic Party "will directly hurt" American workers.
The CATO Institute, most congressional Republicans, and Wall Street agrees.

Long before the 2014 midterm-elections, I was one of the few people on this site warning members of the Democratic Party to prepare themselves for huge losses during the midterm elections. For holding that position, I was vilified. But in the end, I was proven right.

I am acquainted with a neurophysicist who maintains that it is breezingly easy, when reading brain scans, to determine which images reflect the skull-mush of a homo-sapien female, as compared to the skull-mush of a homo-sapien male.

This is because, so says the neurophysicist, scans of the female brain reveal many folds: folds being the way information in the brain is stored. And human females are interested in many things. Thus: many folds.

Kickback: The payment of something of value to a recipient as compensation or reward for providing favorable treatment to another party.

A kickback in the form of money, gifts, credit, or anything of value may be viewed as a corrupt practice that interferes with an employee or official’s ability to make unbiased decisions. - Investopedia

The Fall of Ramadi is becoming a game-changer. Not for the defeat itself, but for the response. In particular, the military offensive to retake Ramadi.
The most obvious element of how things have changed is the composition of the Baghdad army.

to think Bernie loses the general election. Comparing Bernie in 2016 to McGovern in 1972, saying Bernie loses like George did is a bit of a stretch. One should remember that the 1972 Democratic primary was a 4 man race, Humphrey [4.1 million], Wallace [3.7] & Muskie [1.8] got 9.6 million votes to McGoverns 4 million. Humphrey would have been the nominee on the basis of the popular primary vote.

If Hillary Clinton is a true liberal, as Markos Moulitsas has so definitively asserted, then it creates a framework for healing the wounds that have divided the Democratic Party.

At the same time, it stands to reason that Hillary Clinton’s refusal to acknowledge the growing rift between party members creates an almost insurmountable obstacle. As is common in all sick families, a problem that isn’t acknowledged can’t be cured. And there are many grievances to be healed.

It was all a lie – one of the biggest and most elaborate falsehoods ever sold to the American people. .

We thought we were just letting a friend crash at the house for a few days; we ended up with a family of hillbillies who moved in forever, sleeping nine to a bed and building a meth lab on the front lawn - Matt Taibi